Recent content by Alphastream

But how would ICv2 know the reason... and now? These are Q1 '24 results, which somehow ICv2 is saying are due to an event in Q1 '23. It's a ludicrous claim. The data we have from Bookscan covers Q1 '23 and shows book sales (not counting FLGSs, granted) steady and then climbing sharply around the...

Am I reading that this is only a claim by ICv2? I’ve seen no OGL financial impact and no one attributing any other than ICv2. The Bookscan data is pretty clearly not showing any sales decline, while showing a strong rise for the movie’s release and advertising. In recent quarters, it’s...

Their costs have increased substantially. Far larger staff, printing costs are far higher, distribution far more expensive.

Really fantastic work here to pull all of this information together and explain it clearly. I've worked at start-ups and dysfunctional companies, but EGG sounds truly terrible.

What an incredible design and artist career she had. Gave us gifts decade after decade. The Spelljammer art she created, with the nautiloid! Just amazing. It leaves the page and draws you in all at the same time. Her work on the Central Casting series of books was fantastic, and a recent...

I try to tackle this question in the Success in RPGs video series. It's very hard to define in creative industries like this one, because so many in the space are not doing this work full time. And many who are have income through a spouse or are simply unaware of the financial needs they will...

These 3E numbers are not good. Even the 5E adventures with the slowest first year of sales had probably about 60k sales. And the earliest/slowest ones often picked up or held steady over time for most of a decade. Storm King, according to BookScan data, had a minimum of 20.5k sales, but to date...

This was really the most interesting part for me, because it confirms that the 2E and earlier sales data isn't just the numbers, it is context. You have to understand the history of those numbers and how they were pulled together, and basically none of us understand that. It would be amazing to...

It does seem that way. It is a bit different than Ben taking 2001 instead of the first 52 weeks, since he lacks 2000 sales data, but the Bookscan first 52 weeks total is 127k. If we go with the theory that BookScan is roughly 25% of sales, then that's a total first 12 months of 509k, which is...

Well... it is something we have discussed. For Forge of Foes, we wanted to have the Monster Powers support the sections of the book, instead of the other way around. We've shared that the Monster Powers in this book are just some of the many I've come up with. So, stay tuned. We may have more...

It is, but in theory would be applied consistent to other sales. We know BookScan is partial. But it should be big enough that the sales ratios should hold. So, maybe VR having an alt cover helps it catch up to a book that lacks an alt cover. But otherwise this is not going to change much. The...

For sure. It's hard to keep in mind the many many considerations this topic carries. The sales of VR are awesome compared to most historical sourcebook/setting sales, especially for that type of product. I wish Ray could share what he knows about the holes in the data. We all know there are...

Thanks. To make sure I follow, do you mean the following: $60 retail price, which is what your FLGS charges you. $36 is what the retail store paid to the distributor. $23 is what the distributor paid to the gaming company. $23 is what the gaming company gets for all of its work. This must cover...

Oh, wait. 60/35/25 is over 100. What did you mean to propose as the split? Retail 40%?

This is really interesting, Echohawk! Is "Year 1" 2017, or something else? There is also the potential for numbers to change. From my various consulting projects I have seen cases where inventory/sales numbers like that can sometimes be reset or used for some other purchase (every third...